Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorThe Marvel Universe’s newest hero doesn’t have the sort of super-powers used by Thor, Captain Marvel or Spider-Man, but some people think the figure is pretty daring all the same.In a new commercial that launches today, Procter & Gamble’s Tide helps save the day when Wong, Doctor Strange’s longtime colleague, finds himself having to clean up an independently-minded Cloak of Levitation, which is smudged and befouled by pizza flour and pieces of tuna melt.
The ad, which will appear on various social networks and TV, is a deliberate effort to promote the May 6 opening of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” the latest film from Disney’s Marvel Studios, but that doesn’t mean it can’t put a spotlight on a well-known laundry detergent as well.
Marvel fans “aren’t just big, but they are so engaged. It really allows us to get into this new space,” says Alex Perez, senior brand director of Procter & Gamble’s laundry products for North America, in an interview. “We think we will reach people who have seen us before, but not in a way that has been that interesting for them.”Many big marketers have joined with movie studios to help promote a big entertainment release, whether it be McDonald’s offering toy figures in its kid-focused Happy Meals or Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Bud Light joining forces with Warner Bros.
Discovery’s HBO to launch a new season of “Game of Thrones.” Even so, executives at Tide can’t recall a time in the recent past when the detergent has helped scrub the path to a movie launch.Tide snagged the guest-starring role as P&G has placed more emphasis on techniques other than running the same old laundry ads that have for decades featured housewives touting the detergent’s.
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